I am not sure where each of you is, in your own reading and assessment of the situation, but I am now more or less convinced that life as we ‘know’ it, both here in ever ’emerging’ India, and worldwide, is going to change very rapidly in an unprecedented direction – and very possibly we will all experience this directly in our own lifetimes.

Natural resource degradation, contamination and depletion through human over-exploitation – that is, by our ever growing and consuming population – plus climate change, are going to completely redefine our lives and that of our kids. We can remain ostrich-like and convince ourselves that derivatives traders, financiers and technologists will keep the ‘economy’ – as we have been brainwashed into understanding it – afloat and will keep providing endless ‘returns’ on paper money through this idea of compound interest. But, the distress in the natural world today is too immense – and too real – that it is about to breach all our lives and assumptions.

From my chance vantage point, closely observing a small 3-acre piece of land near Thally in the penumbra of Bangalore and industrial Hosur, I have literally seen with my own eyes the degradation of the ecosystem and how water has vanished. If I had a time lapse movie made out of it (and speed-run 20 years of visuals in a few minutes), you would see verdant landscapes, pale in front of your eyes and eventually go brown, scores of lakes brimming with water shrink to a pond first, and then become a dry bed, and borewells that were on average 70 to 100 feet deep, go dry today at 1500 feet. Plastic and industrial trash blows around in the wind on what was once food-yielding agricultural land and is now essentially waste land waiting for an Audi-seeking, dream-peddling real estate developer to snatch it up. Paddy fields below the bunds of abundant lakes now sound like historic fiction and food crop agriculture has been decimated and replaced by a scrappy brand of greenhouse, cash-crop farming by those with the capital to sink multiple 1500 foot borewells and suck what remains dry to convert it into money.

For millennia, the population in that area had been self-sustaining in all resources and especially in water. But, two years ago, after it was clear that the water was vanishing in the area, all the villages in the Thally area were put on ‘the grid’ and connected to a pipeline from the Cauvery via the highly controversial Hogenakkal water project. (We have a water reservoir just outside our piece of land – although we don’t get any of that water ourselves).

So what becomes of the Cauvery now? And even if the Gods are kind and somehow the monsoon switches back on, then in the days and years ahead? Where will those highly contested “cusecs” come from? Is some smart technologist going to invent them in a glass and concrete building with VC money?

I am sorry – but things are truly grim. And 1 out of 6 humans in the world is crammed into the political boundaries of India.

Elsewhere the tides are rising (coastal erosion from Saurashtra all the way around to the Sundarbans), coasts are churning and rivers flooding (see Bihar/UP/Assam, N. Karnataka, Maharashtra and the wild fluctuations from conditions of drought to floods in a few weeks), while glaciers are receding rapidly in the Himalayas (as is happening worldwide).

The ‘comforting notion’ that some smart people sitting somewhere will solve all this with the help of technology, friends, is just that … a notion. It’s not happening. A lot of our problems have, in fact, been created by our resource gobbling and energy crazy, carbon heavy way of life. We are hurtling as humans towards the irreversible 2 degree temperature rise when ‘climate change’ will hit a new trajectory (The Paris climate talks, etc if you read about them, were a joke).

I’ll stop my diatribe. And fervently hope that my angst is completely misplaced. Even though my own experience suggests otherwise. I hope to be an ostrich (“Je suis une autruche”- to use a clause that got popular in a different, distressing context !)

Vijay Kundaji is a repentant, part time tech worker, co-manages a small organic farm and blogs occasionally at Bangalore Notes

5 Comments

The present cauveri imbroglio was expected. When rains lashed the catchment areas, flood water was let out and wasted. Now, in the times of sufficient rains, the people of both states are fighting for water. Ironically, the water is also shared by Kerala and puducheri which are yet to join the imbroglio. The tussle reflects the callousness of states in water preservation and lack of proper policy of water conservation. If climate change warnings are not needed by the government at the centre, more water disputes all over the country might arise in future. This dispute must serve as a warning.

The water as on 8 September 2016 in Karnataka in her principal reservoirs taken together is at least an order of magnitude higher per head of population compared to that in Tamilnadu’s principal reservoirs per head of population. Thus the two states must put their heads together and come to an amicable solution regarding water use.

During a recent rail journey from Bangalore via Hosur, I also noticed the devastation being caused in the outskirts on the southern side of Bangalore. The same process is going on the northern side of Bangalore’s Devanahalli area. All flower, fruit and vegetable farms have vanished around Bangalore. Karnatala govt can’t think beyond Bangalore. Water crisis is going to be an yearly affair in Bangalore even with sufficient rainfall.

The short sighted policy of digging bore-wells to tackle water scarcity has caused havoc in more states, for eg., in Maharashtra. 20 – 25 years ago, it was propagated by the likes of Shri Sharad Pawar, rich farmer and ex- chief minister, leader of the NCP. Farmers themselves run after quick profits and live and farm as if there was no tomorrow. Because they covet the audi and the Lamborghini as much as the builders. What then is the way out? Water harvesting is hardly popular in the cities; maybe some subsidy should be offered to the multi- storied housing societies to induce them to go in for it. Every one in our cities love a subsidies and sales!

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